


In the Night, After the Dark

by sospes



Series: Familitas [2]
Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, M/M, Voyeurism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-20
Updated: 2020-02-20
Packaged: 2021-02-28 02:46:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,909
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22816447
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sospes/pseuds/sospes
Summary: In Kaer Morhen, Yennefer and Jaskier discuss Geralt of Rivia.And then they do a bit more than discuss.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion/Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg, Jaskier | Dandelion & Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg, Jaskier | Dandelion/Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg
Series: Familitas [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1640197
Comments: 70
Kudos: 970





	In the Night, After the Dark

**Author's Note:**

> So, this is pure self-indulgence and I am okay with that. It’s a sequel of sorts to _Familitas_ , but if you’re looking for plot, you’re looking in the wrong place!
> 
> Edit: There is a translation of this fic into Russian available [here](https://ficbook.net/readfic/9628552)!

The winter is hard in Kaer Morhen. 

The snow piles high around the ragged edges of the Witchers’ fortress, spilling icy and white into disused rooms and corridors, and the wind bites at every inch of exposed skin, howling around the tattered battlements and the memories of the dead. It’s freezing even inside, so the few of them wintering in the keep stay in its heart, in a few rooms and bedrooms heated by the thickness of the walls and the fires heaped high in archaic fireplaces. Even the fires don’t mean that the place is _warm_ , though, merely tolerable – and at night, of course, it’s even worse. It’s cold. Bitterly so.

So what does any self-respecting sorceress do when it’s so cold she can’t feel her fingers? She drinks. 

In the small dining hall in the bowels of Kaer Morhen, Yennefer sits as close to the fire as she dares and sips at her third glass of the Witchers’ foul-tasting homebrewed vodka. Geralt is sitting at the central table with Lambert, playing some game that seems to involve coloured counters, a hand of cards, and alcohol, which has been going on for a good hour now. Eskel is watching them, offering helpful suggestions that, Yennefer is guessing from the response, aren’t helpful at all. The other Witchers, Vesemir and Coen, retired to their own iceboxes a little while ago at the first mention of the cards-counters-vodka game, and Yennefer is beginning to wish that she’d followed their example. 

She sips again, and feels the burn sliding hot and heady down her throat. 

The door to the hall opens, admitting Jaskier and a whirl of freezing air. A wordless roar of protest goes up from the three Witchers but Jaskier just rolls his eyes and closes the door behind them, then comes to join Yennefer next to the fire. He presses a light touch to Geralt’s shoulder on his way, almost unconscious, and Yennefer sees the way that Geralt leans into him, just as unconsciously. Neither Lambert nor Eskel pays that fleeting moment of affection any notice, of course. 

Jaskier flops down on the fur-strewn bench next to Yennefer and picks up his own glass from where he left it on the floor. He takes a mouthful, swallows, then grimaces at the taste. “There has to be a way to make this _not_ taste like death,” he says. 

“If there is, I’ve yet to find it,” Yennefer says drily. “Ciri?”

“Asleep,” Jaskier answers. “Snoring like an angel.” 

Yennefer nods. “They’re pushing her hard,” she says, watching as Eskel shoves at a laughing Lambert. “It’s exhausting her. And have you _seen_ the bruises those war toys of their leave?” 

Jaskier shrugs, his expression unreadable. “It’s the only way they know how,” he points out. “They’re Witchers. Not exactly known for their tenderness.” 

Yennefer shoots him a sideways glance, her tongue loosened by the alcohol. “Now, we _both_ know that’s a lie.”

Jaskier flushes to his hairline and drinks what’s left in his glass, then goes to pour himself another. 

They haven’t talked about it, not really, haven’t sat down and had a conversation about the fact that Yennefer used to fuck Geralt of Rivia and now that right belongs solely to Jaskier. It’s not like it’s a particularly awkward fact or anything, to be honest, because Yennefer has seen enough lovers come and go over the years. Jaskier has actually proved to be a far more useful ally than Yennefer ever expected he would do, as well – but it’s still there, unspoken, quiet at the back of her mind. 

Jaskier clears his throat. “Should I be worried by the way you’re looking at me right now?” he asks, voice a little hoarse. “Because it sort of looks like you want to pin me down and dissect me.” 

Yennefer barks a laugh, and at the table Geralt briefly looks up at her. At the same time, Lambert makes a triumphant move, crows loudly, and promptly shoves a glass of vodka into Geralt’s clenched fist, which draws his attention back to the game. He grumbles something Yennefer doesn’t hear and downs the glass. “No,” Yennefer says, meeting Jaskier’s bright eyes. “You’ve nothing to be worried about. At least, nothing serious.” 

He knows her well enough by now to know when she’s teasing. “If I wake up to find I’ve been turned into a frog,” he says, lips very red in the light from the fire, “I’m hopping straight to your door.” 

Yennefer shakes her head, sips her drink. “No, it wouldn’t be a frog,” she says. “It would be something more appropriate. A songbird, maybe. Something flashy and noisy.” 

Jaskier’s lips twist with mirth. “A songbird?” he asks. “I could work with that.” He sketches a hand through the air. “ _The White Wolf and His Lark_. I could definitely get a song out of that.” 

“An epic ballad?” Yennefer asks. “Or perhaps a love song? How does it go: _longing and heartache and lust_?” 

There’s that flush in his cheeks again, embarrassment and alcohol. “I hope you don’t expect me to apologise for my masterpiece,” Jaskier says primly. “You might be the all-powerful sorceress, Yennefer of Vengerberg, hero of Sodden and lady of magic, but I am very good at writing about my own broken heart and I will not be sorry for it.” 

“Not so broken anymore, I hope,” Yennefer says, a little wry but also, surprisingly enough, a little sincere. 

Jaskier’s gaze softens, and he glances over at Geralt. “Not so much,” he allows – and it must be the drink, must be the firelight and the winter and the vodka, because he looks back at her, head cocked, expression curious, and says, “Can I ask you a personal question without sprouting feathers?”

Yennefer is feeling generous, and also a little tipsy. “Ask.”

“Do you miss it?” Jaskier asks, soft enough that even a Witcher would struggle to hear. 

Yennefer doesn’t need to ask for clarification. “Are you asking because you’re interested in my answer, or because you’re afraid of it?”

Jaskier shrugs. “A bit of both.” 

Yennefer considers. “No,” she says, after a moment. “No, I don’t miss it. But that’s because I don’t have to miss it.” Jaskier frowns, and she forestalls his question with a raised hand. “What I shared with Geralt was… physical. Very physical, sexual. But we didn’t live together, we didn’t have a relationship in any real sense of the word. We had… encounters. And orgasms. I miss those.” Jaskier snorts. “But we never had what we have now. A connection, a shared purpose.” She smiles a little, thinks of Ciri, and finishes off her glass. Unasked, Jaskier tops them both up. “He used his wish to bind us together,” she says, “but not in the way he intended.” 

“So you don’t miss what you had with him,” Jaskier says, “because what you have with him now is better?” 

“In a manner of speaking,” Yennefer says, even though she knows that yes, that’s it, that’s it exactly. 

Jaskier drinks slowly. “I’m glad,” he says, soft, so soft. Eskel says something to Geralt, pokes at one of his counters with a fingertip. Geralt shoves him away, but moves that piece anyway. “And not just because I don’t actually want to get turned into a bird. I’m glad that you’ll be with him.” 

Yennefer cocks her head. “What do you mean?” 

“After,” Jaskier says, his smile oddly solemn. “He’ll have you after I’m gone. I think he needs that.” 

Something twists in Yennefer’s heart. “Jaskier,” she says. “That’s not—”

He handwaves her. “I’m human, Yennefer,” he says. “Geralt’s a Witcher. You’re a sorceress. I get him now, and I care for him now. But I won’t always be there.” 

Yennefer’s tongue is dry in her mouth, so she drinks to wet it. “You are a maudlin drunk,” she says to avoid the fact that his words spark something dark and painful in her chest. 

Jaskier quirks a smile and wordlessly raises his glass to her. Yennefer touches her glass to his, and they drink. 

“It really does taste like death,” Jaskier says again, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, lips red, skin soft. “No wonder these Witchers are so keen to get out and see the world. Better alcohol.” His fingers are long and lute-calloused where they wrap around his glass. 

Yennefer doesn’t know why she says it, but they seem to be sharing intimacies now, sex and death, so she may as well carry on. “I saw you and him,” she says. “The first time.” 

Jaskier frowns at her. “What first time?” 

Does she really have to spell it out? “The first time you fell into bed together,” she says, a little flat. 

That blush rises fierce and oddly beautiful in Jaskier’s cheeks. “Ah, yes,” he says. “I know. Geralt felt your magic.” He chuckles. “He wasn’t best pleased, I’ll tell you that. Stormed out of that inn in the biggest huff, wouldn’t so much as jerk me off the whole way back to the cottage.” A darkness flickers in his eyes, but Yennefer knows why: their strange little home, up in smoke. “He wasn’t pleased _at all_ ,” he says again, softer. 

“And you?” Yennefer asks, eyebrow raised. 

Jaskier shrugs, and Yennefer isn’t quite sure if it’s the alcohol or just some strange trick of the light but his body seems to be angled towards her, knees leaning closer but not quite touching. His eyes are very blue in the firelight. “There can be a certain pleasure in being watched,” he says, a lilt in his voice that Yennefer hasn’t heard before. “Not sure Geralt appreciates that.”

“And you do?” 

Jaskier doesn’t answer, his gaze intent. “While we’re sharing,” he says, “I saw you and Geralt, too. The first time. Only briefly, until Chireadean dragged me away.” 

A strange heat kindles itself deep in Yennefer’s belly. “I didn’t know,” she says, then laughs. “It makes me feel less guilty for watching you for as long as I did.” 

Jaskier raises an eyebrow. He slings his arm over the back of the bench, forearms bare, loose undershirt gaping at the neck to reveal dark hair scattered across his chest. “Enjoy the view?” he asks, and the tone in his voice lets her take it either way, as a joke, as a tease – or as something else. 

Yennefer raises her glass, drinks slowly, watches as Jaskier’s gaze flickers to her lips, just for a moment. “I did,” she says. “There’s a certain pleasure in watching, too.” 

At the table, Lambert jumps to his feet, victorious. Geralt seems unimpressed, but he downs the drink that Lambert shoves towards him anyway. 

Jaskier laughs quietly, then licks his lips. His knee nudges gently against Yennefer’s, just a little, and she doesn’t push him away. “I imagined we’d have this conversation at some point,” he says, voice throaty, hoarse with something more than just the drink. “This isn’t quite how I saw it going.” 

Yennefer tilts her head to one side. “And how exactly do you think it’s going, bard?” she asks, reaches out, pushes a lock of dark hair out of his eyes. 

Jaskier’s gaze flares, and he smiles a smile that Yennefer never expected would turn on her. 

At the table, Lambert and Eskel are taking their leave, pleasantly buzzed on the vile Witcher vodka. They go, half-leaning against each other, roaring with laughter. 

Thing is, Yennefer knows, this isn’t about emotion. Whatever’s happening here, burning hot and heady in her belly, sparking in Jaskier’s lazy smile, it’s not love – at least, it isn’t _romance_. There are other kinds of love, because, despite everything, she values Jaskier. And right now, despite everything, she sees his red lips and his blue eyes and the column of his throat and she _wants_ him. 

Her fingertip trails down his cheek, pauses on the swell of his lower lip. His eyes are dilated, pupils blown wide. 

“Jaskier?” Geralt asks, confusion in his voice. “Yen?” 

Jaskier’s gaze doesn’t leave Yennefer – and slowly, carefully, he presses an open-mouthed kiss to her fingertip. She feels the briefest touch of his tongue and, oh, _fuck_. “Geralt,” Jaskier says, and there’s alcohol in his voice, yes, but he isn’t slurring, isn’t out of control. He knows what he’s doing – and Yennefer slides her fingers down his throat, rubs her thumb across his larynx. At the same time, she feels his hand land heavy on her thigh, hot through the fabric of her dress. “Tell us if you want us to stop, Geralt,” Jaskier says, the fingers of his other hand twisting in Yennefer’s hair. His voice is heavy with want. He doesn’t take his eyes off her. “Do you want us to stop?” 

“No,” Geralt says, gravelly and dark and, oh, _gods_. 

Yennefer slides her hand into Jaskier’s hair, tugs him to her, and kisses him fiercely. His lips are soft but his hands are decidedly not – one grips her thigh tight, the other slides to the back of her neck, and Yennefer never expected that Jaskier would handle her with such _surety_. He knows what he wants, she realises. He knows what he wants and he knows how to get it. 

Well, she’s not about to just let him _take_ it. She’s Yennefer of Vengerberg. She has a reputation to uphold. 

Yennefer bites Jaskier’s lip, nips harder than she probably should, then breaks the kiss and pulls his head back, arching his throat and sucking a bruise under his ear. He makes a surprised, strangled noise but doesn’t resist, doesn’t protest – and his hand slides higher up between her thighs, creasing her skirt, pressing between her legs. Yennefer kisses him again, possessive, dominant, then reaches into his mind and shows him what she wants, just a flash, just a fractured thought: Jaskier, on his knees, head between her legs. 

Jaskier groans. “ _That’s_ a fun party trick.” 

“Put that tongue to good use,” she says, half whisper, mostly order. 

He laughs in response. “Your wish, my command,” he murmurs, and slides off the bench. He pushes her skirt up above her knees, presses kisses to her inner thighs, and his touch burns with a dark, sparking fire as he rapidly divests her of her smallclothes and, _oh._

Yennefer lets her head fall back and moans. 

Jaskier knows what he’s doing, she’ll give him that. All those years of bedding whichever countess or princess or duchess it was this week, all the farmer’s daughters and merchant’s wives, it’s worth it because he’s between her legs with his silver tongue and his long-fingered, lute-calloused hands and it is ecstasy. Not that she’s comparing, not that she’s about to say this out loud, but he’s better than Geralt – sensitive, attentive, experienced in giving women pleasure. 

Yennefer hears Geralt hum a soft laugh. She looks up at him as she slides one hand gently into Jaskier’s hair, tugging him carefully closer. Geralt’s still sitting at the table, sprawled out in his chair, hand pressed lightly to the bulge in his trousers. His eyes are a dark, heavy gold. “He has a talented tongue,” he says, voice thick with arousal. 

Yennefer snarls a smile. “Well-practiced, I imagine.” 

Jaskier laughs, still buried between her legs. “Are you complaining?” he asks, and licks a teasing, delicate path that just misses everything she wants him not to miss. 

“Feel free to shut him up, Yen,” Geralt says. “He likes it when you’re rough with him.” – and she can feel the memory in the surface of his mind, offered to her like a gift: Jaskier pinned beneath Geralt’s weight, his wrists held in one of Geralt’s hands, the other held tight over his mouth as Geralt fucks into him, fast and hard and borderline brutal – and the look in Jaskier’s eyes, ecstatic, elated. 

Yennefer doesn’t need to be told twice. She grips Jaskier’s hair so hard she knows it hurts and pushes him exactly where she wants him to go, spreads her legs wider and grinds down against his chin, his lips. Gods, she can feel the tremble of arousal that spins through his body as she uses him to get herself off in exactly the way she needs. 

She comes unexpectedly quickly, Jaskier’s fingers and tongue buried inside her, comes with a hoarse shout and a wrenched handful of his hair. 

Geralt grunts. “Fuck,” he says, unlacing his trousers, reaching inside. 

Jaskier falls back on his haunches, lips and chin obscenely wet, and looks back over his shoulder at Geralt. “Is that an instruction?” he asks, smile wicked, eyes sparkling. 

Yennefer slides off the bench, sits astride Jaskier’s lap, pushes him back so he’s flat on his back on the hard stone floor. She grips his chin tight, turns his attention back to her, then flicks out with a glimmer of magic and pins his wrists above his head, holds him still as she reaches down, takes his cock out of his trousers and guides him into her. 

“Oh, _fuck_ ,” Jaskier gasps, thrusting up into her until she wraps another skein of magic around his waist and puts paid to that. “Yennefer, _please_.” 

Yennefer looks up at Geralt, and for a moment she sees herself through his eyes: still basically fully clothed, hair wild, skin flushed, holding the safety and pleasure of the man who holds his heart in the palm of her hand – and all of a sudden she understands. Trust. Geralt is trusting her with Jaskier, trusting her to take care of his heart even if she doesn’t have it herself. 

“Will you fucking _move!_ ” Jaskier barks. 

Geralt shrugs at her as he strokes himself, lazy and slow but getting faster. “He’s mouthy,” he says, almost apologetic. “I haven’t managed to figure out how to shut him up yet.” 

“I think I might have an idea,” Yennefer says, sliding her hands underneath Jaskier’s shirt, and rides him _hard_ , almost harder than a human can take. There’s a particular sort of pleasure in watching his eyes roll back in his head, his mouth gape into a slick red o, hearing his breathing quicken to a pant, watching as he comes apart under her, moaning and writhing against her bonds until she takes pity on him and undoes the magic. His hips buck up into her, changing the angle, deepening it, and then Jaskier’s surging up, flipping them over so she’s under him, and he hooks his right elbow under her knee, spreads her open and fucks into her so sharp and so perfect that she cries out, feels that heat coiling in her gut again, faster than she thought possible. 

Shit, Geralt’s fucking _bard_ is going to make her come _again._

And she does with a long, low moan, just moments before Jaskier’s hips stutter and he chokes out a gasp, thrusting haphazardly a few more times before he crashes to a halt, spent. 

“ _Fuck_ ,” Geralt husks, and Yennefer recognises that sudden release of tension in his voice. 

Jaskier laughs, his eyes bright, and he leans down, kisses Yennefer sloppily, messily. She can taste herself on his tongue, and she slides her hands through his hair, licks into his mouth and knows all of a sudden that this is the last time this will happen. It’s not a sad thought, per se, but it’s a _final_ thought. 

Jaskier breaks the kiss and offers her a surprisingly sweet smile. “You did say you missed the orgasms,” he says, the sly tone in his voice significantly undercutting any kind of post-coital softness, and Yennefer rolls her eyes and shoves him off her. He goes with a groan, then yelps as he hits the cold stone. “Why did we fuck on the _floor_?” he whines. 

“Because,” Geralt offers, wiping his hand on his shirt, “apparently neither of you can handle Vesemir’s vodka.”

“Are you saying you didn’t enjoy the show?” Jaskier drawls. 

“I didn’t say that,” Geralt answers, then studies them both, frowning. “And why exactly did you put it on?” 

“It hardly seemed fair,” Yennefer answers before Jaskier can speak. She gets to her feet as elegantly as she can, feeling the familiar ache in her hips, the slick warmth of Jaskier’s come slipping down her inner thighs. “You’ve had us both, Geralt. It only seemed right that we have a chance to get to know each other a little more.” 

“Plus,” Jaskier says, still sprawled out on the floor, looking thoroughly fucked out, “we thought you might like to have a chance to watch for once.” He stretches, arching his back like a cat, and Yennefer doesn’t miss how Geralt’s gaze flickers down his body, attentive, intense. “And, judging from the state of your trousers,” Jaskier laughs, “I think we were right.” 

Geralt hums, but his eyes are surprisingly soft. 

Jaskier looks up at Yennefer, his eyes that same lazy-bright blue. “Thanks for not turning me into a bird,” he says, flashing her his teeth in a keen smile. 

Yennefer huffs a laugh. “Thanks for the orgasms,” she answers, and Jaskier’s grin spreads even wider. “Write a song about this,” she interrupts before he can get there first, “and I’ll castrate you.”

“Geralt!” Jaskier yelps. 

“You’d probably deserve it,” Geralt rumbles. He meets Yennefer’s gaze, long-suffering. “You should hear the ballad he’s written about my cock.” 

“That,” Jaskier says, prim and proper despite the fact he’s lying on his back with his trousers still around his knees and his cock exposed, “is a true masterpiece. They’ll be singing that a hundred years from now.” 

“I bloody hope not,” Geralt says. 

Jaskier looks back to Yennefer. “You sure you don’t want to join the ranks of my muses?” he asks, eyebrows wagging. “I could memorialise your haven of joy in song. Your purse of desire. The wet heat of your magical cave.” His eyes light up. “Ooh, I could milk the magic angle! There aren’t many erotic ballads about sorceresses, funnily enough – probably because all their bards have been castrated. Or turned into birds. I could be the founder of a whole new literary canon…” 

“Shut the fuck up, Jaskier,” Yennefer says, and Geralt chuckles. 

Jaskier doesn’t seem particularly intimidated by her threats. “A shame,” he says. “ _Seduced by the Saucy Sorceress_ has a certain ring to it.” 

“I’m fairly sure the seduction was mutual,” Yennefer says drily. 

Jaskier waves a hand. “Details.” 

Yennefer studies him for a moment longer, then decides that she’s had enough for one day. “I’m going to get a bath,” she says. “Clean your mess off me. I’ll see you both in the morning.” 

Jaskier acts offended, but Geralt speaks over him. “Goodnight, Yen,” he says, eyes warm, pale skin practically glowing in the firelight. 

The last thing Yennefer sees before she closes the door behind her, ducking back out into the bitter winter of Kaer Morhen, is Geralt joining Jaskier on the hard floor next to the fire, his every movement full of that particular grace that only Witchers seem to possess. Jaskier gazes up at him, lax and fluid, his hand rubbing gently along Geralt’s thigh, and Geralt leans down to him, kisses him softly, gently, a kiss of familiarity and affection and intimacy that tugs at something warm and deep in Yennefer’s heart. 

The door closes behind her with a soft thud. 

Yennefer stands in the cold of the Witcher’s fortress, shoulders loose, hands open, and lets out a breath she didn’t know she was holding in.


End file.
